A proverbial saying is said to state a fact or express a thought in vivid metaphor while a riddle to describe a person or thing in obscure metaphor calculated as a test of intellectual ability in the person attempting to solve it.

Proverbial sayings are divided, according to their form into direct statements and metaphorical statements.

The following are examples of direct statements:—

The quarrel between the husband and the wife lasts only till the pot of rice is cooked.

A lie is short lived.

One individual can ruin a whole community.

What is the use of relations who do not help you when your door is broken.

Poverty is lighter than cotton.

Metaphorical statements are more numerous and are best considered according to the matter involved such as honesty, thrift, folly, knavery, natural disposition, ingratitude, luck, hypocrisy; and the following are some typical examples:—

When the king takes the wife to whom is the poor man to complain.

You may escape from the god Saman Deviyo but you cannot escape his servant AmangallÂ.

There is certain to be a hailstorm when the unlucky man gets his head shaved.

The teeth of the dog that barks at the lucky man will fall out.

On a lucky day you can catch fish with twine; but on an unlucky day the fish will break even chains of iron.

The water in an unfilled pot makes a noise.

You call a kabaragoy a talagoya when you want to eat it.

It is like wearing a crupper to cure dysentery.

Like the man who got the roasted jak seeds out of the fire by the help of a cat.

Like the man who would not wash his body to spite the river.

Like the man who flogged the elk skin at home to avenge himself on the deer that trespassed in his field.

Like the villagers who tied up the mortars in the village in the belief that the elephant tracks in the fields were caused by the mortars wandering about at night.

Though a dog barks at a hill will it grow less.

It is like licking your finger on seeing a beehive on a tree.

It is not possible to make a charcoal white by washing it in milk.

The cobra will bite you whether you call it cobra or Mr. Cobra.

Riddles are either in prose or verse.

As examples of prose riddles the following may be mentioned:—

What is it that cries on this bank, but drops its dung on the other (megoda andalayi egoda betilayi)—A gun.

What is the tree by the door that has 20 branches and 20 bark strips; twenty knocks on the head of the person who fails to solve it. (dorakadagahe atuvissayi potu vissayi netÊruvot toku vissayi)—10 fingers and 10 toes.

What is it that is done without intermission (nohita karana ve?dÊ)—the twinkling of the eye.

The following are examples of verse riddles.

The Eye—

The Cobra.

The Pine Apple.